Politics & Government

Tommy Thompson Just Edged Eric Hovde in Tosa Polling for U.S. Senate Primary

Wauwatosa's voters bucked trends only in giving third-place finish to Jeff Fitzgerald, who ran a distant fourth after Mark Neumann statewide.

Wauwatosa voters closely mirrored statewide polling Tuesday between the two top contenders in the GOP primary for a U.S. Senate race, with Tommy Thompson edging Eric Hovde.

Hovde actually came even closer here, trailing Thompson by just 1.8 percentage points. About 3 percent separated the two in .

Thompson will face Democrat Tammy Baldwin in the November general election.

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As they did across the state, Mark Neumann and Jeff Fitzgerald both fell far off the leaders' mark, but here in Tosa they were flipped: Fitzgerald, who ran a very distant fourth statewide, topped Neumann here by more than 300 votes.

Democrats, with no major contests on the slate, stayed home in droves, pulling only 881 ballots out of a total of 8,702 cast. Overall, 26 percent of registered voters participated.

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There were 7,336 votes cast in the U.S. Senate primary race, including three write-ins, with these results:

  • Thompson, 2,536 votes, or 34.5 percent
  • Hovde, 2,398 votes, or 32.7 percent
  • Fitzgerald, 1,366 votes, or 18.6 percent
  • Neumann, 1,033 votes, or 14 percent

Brookfield's Hutton easily wins in 13th District

The only other major contest on the Wauwatosa ballot pitted three Republican contenders for the 13th Assembly District race. The 13th includes 10 of Wauwatosa's 24 voting wards in all or part of four districts, plus about half of Brookfield and all of Elm Grove.

A total of 2,578 votes were cast in that race in Wauwatosa, including seven write-ins, with these results:

  • Rob Hutton, 1,364 votes, or 53 percent
  • Thomas J. Schellinger, 845 votes, or 32.8 percent
  • Nate Ristow, 362 votes, or 14 percent

, winning the race with 58 percent of the vote and the right to face Democrat John Pokrandt in November.

Hutton and Schellinger are both from Brookfield and both were well known in Waukesha County politics, each having served as County Board supervisors there. Schellinger had also been a Brookfield alderman.

Ristow, of Wauwatosa, had little name recognition, having never run for any elected office before. The 2009 Marquette Law School graduate had most recently served as an assistant legal counsel to Gov. Scott Walker.

Hutton, the part-owner, president and CEO of Rock Transfer & Storage Inc., a logistics firm employing 125 people, successfully parlayed his business experience as well as his legislative record.

In other districts

In the 14th State Assembly District, incumbent Rep. Dale Kooyenga, a Republican, was uncontested and won a vote of confidence of 2,392 votes against 18 write-ins.

In the 12th State Assembly District, representing a sliver of Wauwatosa, a total of 104 votes were cast, with sitting 97-7.


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